Letters of Last Resort in the event of Nuclear War

When at some point our office was on the edge of closure (which never happened, fortunately), the chief management officer told the HR guy that he'd be the one to lock the doors behind him when everybody had left. That quite undermined the HR guy's morale.

Are the existence of these letters not a paradox to the theory of Nuclear deterrent? If the purpose of a nuclear deterrent is to mean that the weapons are never needed to be used then we should need the letters to order their use?

It does fascinate me what former PMs would have written. Surely Thatcher would have written 'attack the commies and while you're at it fire a couple at Buenos Aires and north England'

I still think that the best option would be to place the vessel under command of a friendly nation.

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Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

Are the existence of these letters not a paradox to the theory of Nuclear deterrent? If the purpose of a nuclear deterrent is to mean that the weapons are never needed to be used then we should need the letters to order their use?

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The problem is that at the point that the UK has been destroyed utterly, then its a past question.
It has "will have going to have happened" happened. It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future.

The action of the letters exists at a point in time after and beyond the point of mutually assured destruction. The theory of nuclear deterrent wouldn't be a paradox at that point but a resolved question which will have failed.